Ive no faith in SE/Yoshi-P when comes to balancing healers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yuyuka3

I'm starting to almost hate people who obviously never did anything beyond casual dungeons...
Balance means EVERYTHING. Yes, sure, WHM can do all content. But what is that WORTH, if the other two healers blow WHM out of the water in practically any way possible? Nothing. It's worth nothing at all, because, yes, you can do everything with a WHM. Too bad people prefer to take the best jobs for a certain role with them, and WHM is best at absolutely nothing at all.
Go watch some guides for higher content, especially the last few Omega stages and above, and tell me how many WHMs you see in those videos. It's quite telling. Also, look at some logs and rankings. Even more telling. SCH and AST work extremely well together, they provide the group with fantastic utility, while WHM brings nothing to the table others cannot provide. So why bring a WHM at all? It's like trying to run a marathon with weights bound to your legs. The only reason I manage to continue raiding as WHM is because I form parties with people who know me well. Else I'm pretty sure they would prefer AST or SCH over WHM practically any day of the week.

---

This is an extreme over exaggeration and has been proving by real skilled players that whm can run it fine. Especially in 5.0 everything will be almost 100% based on player skill and not class

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by guardin

This is an extreme over exaggeration and has been proving by real skilled players that whm can run it fine. Especially in 5.0 everything will be almost 100% based on player skill and not class

---

https://i.imgur.com/odVFYr3.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/hwuZLUp.png

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

But what compelling reason is there to bring a WHM to say, Ultimate or Savage, when an AST can do virtually everything better?

---

This is kind of a red herring. An intelligent healer can play WHM at a much higher level than any casual AST could reach. That's why you'd take a WHM, because they may actually just be a better player.

Personally, I don't heal, so I don't have a dog in this race. My static healers are acting like the sky is falling though, and I really can't see that happening. They seem to be doing a nice job on the other changes so far so I doubt they are going to mess stuff up any worse than it's already been. The most reasonable minds seem to be suggesting that they are more or less just boosting the healing throughput of the other jobs to contend with WHM shear "pure healing" power. As for utility and such, I suppose it's a somewhat valid concern if we take that as the truth, they are buffing the utility healers healing so now they have utility and just as powerful healing as WHM while WHM has nothing.. But it's probably a bit to early to settle on that conclusion since we don't know what and how much is being changed with utility in general.

IDK, I'm just trying to say "stay generally positive" for now because they at least seem to be doing the "right things" on other jobs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by guardin

This is an extreme over exaggeration and has been proving by real skilled players that whm can run it fine. Especially in 5.0 everything will be almost 100% based on player skill and not class

---

I explicitely said WHM can run anything... I don't get where you see me saying it can't. However, what I did say is that it's far more effective to just run AST/SCH over WHM/whatever instead, since AST/SCH has so much synergy and makes fights so much easier. That's also why I compared it to that marathon example. WHM/whatever will always be slower than AST/SCH, since AST/SCH brings so much to the table, that it is like hampering yourself by bringing a WHM instead. Yes, you still can down the content with a WHM instead of one of the other healers. But why do it if bringing one of each of the other two makes you so much faster than replacing one of them with the WHM? WHM adds nothing the others cannot provide after all.

Does that make it more clear?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

This is kind of a red herring. An intelligent healer can play WHM at a much higher level than any casual AST could reach. That's why you'd take a WHM, because they may actually just be a better player.

Personally, I don't heal, so I don't have a dog in this race. My static healers are acting like the sky is falling though, and I really can't see that happening. They seem to be doing a nice job on the other changes so far so I doubt they are going to mess stuff up any worse than it's already been. The most reasonable minds seem to be suggesting that they are more or less just boosting the healing throughput of the other jobs to contend with WHM shear "pure healing" power. As for utility and such, I suppose it's a somewhat valid concern if we take that as the truth, they are buffing the utility healers healing so now they have utility and just as powerful healing as WHM while WHM has nothing.. But it's probably a bit to early to settle on that conclusion since we don't know what and how much is being changed with utility in general.

IDK, I'm just trying to say "stay generally positive" for now because they at least seem to be doing the "right things" on other jobs.

---

You didn't have to state you don't play healer, it's clear as day from the rest of your post...
The other two healers already have healing as good and as easy as WHM, or, you know, even better and easier. AST, for example, can heal and DPS while moving with Lightspeed, while WHM always has to cast. Similar for SCH, they got Energy Drain and Ruin II to deal damage on the move. WHM literally only has Aero for that. The reason your healers are freaking out is because there is literally no implication that they actually do correctly balance healers. From what it looks like to me, they rather make it worse...

Also, if that better player plays AST instead of WHM, you again get a huge boost. An AST and a WHM of equal skill level are NOT equal as healers at all. Pretty far from it, actually. And saying 'we take a good WHM rather than a bad AST' might be logical at first, but why not take a good AST instead of a bad one instead? Far better than taking that WHM instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yuyuka3

I explicitely said WHM can run anything... I don't get where you see me saying it can't. However, what I did say is that it's far more effective to just run AST/SCH over WHM/whatever instead, since AST/SCH has so much synergy and makes fights so much easier. That's also why I compared it to that marathon example. WHM/whatever will always be slower than AST/SCH, since AST/SCH brings so much to the table, that it is like hampering yourself by bringing a WHM instead. Yes, you still can down the content with a WHM instead of one of the other healers. But why do it if bringing one of each of the other two makes you so much faster than replacing one of them with the WHM? WHM adds nothing the others cannot provide after all.

Does that make it more clear?

---

I see what you're saying but I do have a few thoughts after thinking about the trailer as a whole.

First - WHM is the only healer who seems to have gotten a large aesthetic change to their personal DPS spell. This doesn't necessarily equate to a buff but something about a shiny holy laser feels more impressive than a rock. If WHM has a significantly stronger ST nuke spell (which it's always had at least a bit of a potency lead in this respect) this could help bring it up towards AST/SCH.

Second is the impact on the "reductions in job synergy" which are vague but also mean one thing for healers and that's Chain and Cards will likely be less impactful. Whether this means nerfing the actual numerical effectiveness or changing their CDs to purposely misalign or something else entirely I don't know but I'm thinking we aren't going to be seeing groups getting 1k rDPS from Balance or 600 rDPS from Chain.

So if the rDPS aspects of SCH and AST are negatively impacted by the synergy reductions and WHM gains a stronger lead in terms of the main spammable dps button it could definitely lead to WHM being a better choice. It's like how BLM became meta at the very end of SB, their damage lead was enough that the speed with which you clear some fights with a BLM is worth more for everyone's damage than some rDPS increases.

I know this isn't set in stone but it's also not wildly outlandish. We'll actually have a fairly good idea of this once the 29th rolls around since we can figure out the weight of potential rDPS increases and we can also look at the potency differences between WHM's dps and it's competitors.

Fingers crossed! I don't think we should get all the way beaten down yet though, there's more hope than we've had for all of SB I think.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yuyuka3

You didn't have to state you don't play healer, it's clear as day from the rest of your post...
The other two healers already have healing as good and as easy as WHM, or, you know, even better and easier. AST, for example, can heal and DPS while moving with Lightspeed, while WHM always has to cast. Similar for SCH, they got Energy Drain and Ruin II to deal damage on the move. WHM literally only has Aero for that. The reason your healers are freaking out is because there is literally no implication that they actually do correctly balance healers. From what it looks like to me, they rather make it worse...

Also, if that better player plays AST instead of WHM, you again get a huge boost. An AST and a WHM of equal skill level are NOT equal as healers at all. Pretty far from it, actually. And saying 'we take a good WHM rather than a bad AST' might be logical at first, but why not take a good AST instead of a bad one instead? Far better than taking that WHM instead.

---

They addressed mobility so that can't be your main concern.

All I did was provide an obvious situation where you may take a WHM over an AST. My own personal experience, we struggled with final omega for nearly 2 months before replacing our AST with a different healer, a WHM, and ended up clearing the next week. The WHM had never even seen the second half of the fight. Truly, I'm not even sure they were as good of a "healer", but they were better than what we had either way. Anecdotal evidence, of course, but still a very real situation - not just a logical thought process (for me, and I also have different healers now anyways)

Veis' BLM example is kind of what I was alluding to. If they just boosted the other healers without evaluating their additional utility over WHM it's going to be a bad situation. But if there are significant changes in that dept it could end up being more of a wash.

Maybe they gave us something nice and my cynicism will be wrong. My breath will remain unheld until Wednesday.

Just be fully prepared in case history repeats itself. If I remember correctly, the next step after a bad mechanic reveal is a month of moving the goalposts to "You don't know it's bad until encounter design proves it! You don't know that they didn't fundamentally change everything about this game and redesign it to make forum princess healers optimal!"

Look forward to it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

This is kind of a red herring. An intelligent healer can play WHM at a much higher level than any casual AST could reach. That's why you'd take a WHM, because they may actually just be a better player.

---

This is a false equivalent argument people really need to stop making. Why are you comparing a skilled WHM against an inexperienced AST? Of course the former wins, but that remains true of any job. No one has argued WHM is unplayable, just inferior. If you compare two equally skilled WHM and AST players, the latter will always win. In fact, there can be a decent discrepancy (10-15% difference) and AST will still come out ahead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Personally, I don't heal, so I don't have a dog in this race. My static healers are acting like the sky is falling though, and I really can't see that happening. They seem to be doing a nice job on the other changes so far so I doubt they are going to mess stuff up any worse than it's already been. The most reasonable minds seem to be suggesting that they are more or less just boosting the healing throughput of the other jobs to contend with WHM shear "pure healing" power. As for utility and such, I suppose it's a somewhat valid concern if we take that as the truth, they are buffing the utility healers healing so now they have utility and just as powerful healing as WHM while WHM has nothing.. But it's probably a bit to early to settle on that conclusion since we don't know what and how much is being changed with utility in general.

IDK, I'm just trying to say "stay generally positive" for now because they at least seem to be doing the "right things" on other jobs.

---

I can tell you do not play healers due to the statement I highlighted. Both Astro and Scholar have oGCDs leaps and bounds above anything at White Mage's disposal. Earthly Star is nearly double the heal potency of Assize, Collective Unconscious provides the strongest regen in the game alongside a 10% shield on an instant cast and Essential is essentially Tetra on steroids. You then have Excog is even more ridiculous at 800 potency. Yes, it costs an Energy Drain but that's a mere 150 potency compared to the 250 White Mage gives up if they need to GCD heal. They aren't bringing Astro and Scholar up to White Mage's level, they're desperately trying to figure out why the former two absolutely dominate the latter. White Mage lacks behind in both healing and raid utility.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by guardin

This is an extreme over exaggeration and has been proving by real skilled players that whm can run it fine. Especially in 5.0 everything will be almost 100% based on player skill and not class

---

No one is arguing that WHM cannot clear content, they are arguing that because WHM is lacking it will be benched if there is even a half way decent AST or SCH to replace it. Because that is how much of a difference utility and the oGCD heals that allow AST and SCH to DPS more bring to the table. WHM is not superior in any way that is actually meaningful.

So even as a skilled WHM, a half way decent AST is superior in what it brings to a raid because of the utility it provides to the other players. And the discrepancy increases the more skilled the other raid members are. I say this as a skilled WHM who has cleared Savage content. I literally am handicapping a raid group by playing WHM. And even if they are my friends, and they're letting me play my main class, I shouldn't have to feel guilty over playing my main class because I know the difference in what I bring to the table, even if I am skilled.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

I can tell you do not play healers due to the statement I highlighted.

---

I can tell you don't play all 3 healers in any kind of setting where balance matters.

He's clearly referring the pure HPS that a WHM can achieve. Sure, in an optimal setting SCH and AST have enough oGCDs to heal through the majority of damage that will come out in any content... but not all content is an optimal setting. Progging with SCH and WHM is easier in most situations because of the potential for huge burst healing on demand which is something the other healers just don't have. Yes, in talking about Cure III. I'm talking about Assize every 45 seconds. Plenary Indulgence. Asylum. Benediction. I'm talking about the best MP management in the game. Try keeping the party up through big damage on SCH when your cohealer goes down and you don't have Indom.

SCH and AST both have many sparkley tools that are incredibly useful in their own right but when it comes to purely keeping people standing through constant damage (like what happens during late stage savage or ultimate progression, the content that jobs need to actually be balanced around) there is no contest to the thoroughput and adaptability of WHM.

I'm not advocating for them to not add more to WHM, I'm not saying WHM is truly ahead in any meaningful way outside of progression but I'm mostly just incredibly annoyed that you would try to condescend to someone with a statement like "I can tell you do not play healers" when you very clearly don't understand what he's saying despite the fact that you apparently play healers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by griffinborn

https://i.imgur.com/odVFYr3.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/hwuZLUp.png

---

This made me smile

Thoroughput isn't meaningless during progression or when recovering from a mistake. Not everything is a perfectly coordinated run in Savage with a full static and, as I pointed out in my post, SCH and to a lesser extent AST have less of an ability to heal through their problems alone. Don't have Star up on AST? Don't have Indom up or Aetherflow for Indom? A WHM always has Cure III. It's a safety net.

And yes! WHM is definitely more useful in worse groups. It isn't even just the healing potential (which is greater than either other healer, anyone who says otherwise is delusional) it's also the fact that SCH and AST begin to lose their dps lead in coordinated groups. The first thing to go is the effectiveness of their rDPS buffs (doing less damage? timing burst phases less efficently?) but survivability topples soon after. If you have a group that makes mistakes WHM has the MP and skills to recover from them. It's main sources of damage don't vary by well-coordinated buffs and aren't a large tax on its resources.

Lastly you are literally strawmanning me even though you quoted a post where I said "I'm not advocating for them to not add more to WHM" and then went on to rant about this viscious cycle of healer inequality. I'm aware of that, I'm literally just talking about another way in which (up until 5.0) healers haven't been equal - thoroughput and recovery. It's a place WHM has consistently been stronger and a place that the post I quoted was invalidating.

Don't being your salt about WHM's problems to me, I'm exceedingly aware of them but they do not invalidate it's strengths and pretending that they do will only keep you from being able to form an evolved opinion about the state of healers now and into the future.

Also as far as I'm able to tell you aren't some 99% speedrun world first player so I don't see why you're acting like you're playing in these perfectly optimized comps. It's nonsense.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yuyuka3

I'm starting to almost hate people who obviously never did anything beyond casual dungeons...
Balance means EVERYTHING. Yes, sure, WHM can do all content. But what is that WORTH, if the other two healers blow WHM out of the water in practically any way possible? Nothing. It's worth nothing at all, because, yes, you can do everything with a WHM. Too bad people prefer to take the best jobs for a certain role with them, and WHM is best at absolutely nothing at all.
Go watch some guides for higher content, especially the last few Omega stages and above, and tell me how many WHMs you see in those videos. It's quite telling. Also, look at some logs and rankings. Even more telling. SCH and AST work extremely well together, they provide the group with fantastic utility, while WHM brings nothing to the table others cannot provide. So why bring a WHM at all? It's like trying to run a marathon with weights bound to your legs. The only reason I manage to continue raiding as WHM is because I form parties with people who know me well. Else I'm pretty sure they would prefer AST or SCH over WHM practically any day of the week.

---

Everything you've just said is either false or doesn't matter.

People prefer others over White Mage. What's your point? It doesn't matter at all what people prefer because White mage can still do just as well or even better. The ONLY time it matters if you are the 1% that tries to go for first clear as soon as it comes out.

And yes I have gone beyond just the normal dungeons and working my way through EX fights now as, guess who. A White Mage.

And at the end of the day I could not care one bit about people that think that White Mage is less ideal because it's the job I prefer to play and that's all that really matters because *Now pay attention this time.*

It
does
not
matter.

Do you understand that?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vivian_Vex

Everything you've just said is either false or doesn't matter.

People prefer others over White Mage. What's your point? It doesn't matter at all what people prefer because White mage can still do just as well or even better. The ONLY time it matters if you are the 1% that tries to go for first clear as soon as it comes out.

And yes I have gone beyond just the normal dungeons and working my way through EX fights now as, guess who. A White Mage.

And at the end of the day I could not care one bit about people that think that White Mage is less ideal because it's the job I prefer to play and that's all that really matters because *Now pay attention this time.*

It
does
not
matter.

Do you understand that?

---

I understand that you got no clue what you are even talking about, yes. You did Ex Primals? Oh wow, you did slightly harder casual content now, I'm amazed! Ex primals, for a halfway decent group, are a matter of one evening tops when it comes to learning them. They are hardly anything special and are usually cleared by random groups within hours after release. They are nothing. In other words, you are still not even where balance is needed.

Balance.
DOES.
Matter.

Have you been around during 4.5? I guess no, or else you wouldn't talk like this. Back in 4.5, WHM was so bad compared to the other two healers it wasn't even taken into Zurvan Ex by many, many groups. That's right, it wasn't even taken into casual content because it was crap like that! As someone who had to suffer through that time, I honestly, seriously don't want a repeat of that bullshit, so I fight for proper balancing. But know what?

It will repeat itself if nothing happens. And people like you are actively hindering necessary change by sticking their heads in the sand and pretending everything's okay because they aren't even in the content where balance matters.

Balance.
DOES.
Matter.

It matters, because people, as a whole, are idiotic sheep that will run with what that 1% dictates. It matters because it's bullshit that every top group should run the same job combination because it's 'best', leaving all the others in the dust. It matters because it's hurtful to get told to switch your job because the one you love and want to play is garbage compared to the others. And yes, that did happen to me. Multiple time, during both Heavensward and Stormblood.

Play the real content (though now it's already too late with the Echo in every tier of Omega and all that), then come back and try talking again.

It does matter if you enter PF for an Ex Primal and after people see you also got AST up to 70 ask you to change jobs, and get salty if you don't (Yes, that would be against ToS by now if they "Force" you to do so, but even if they ask nicely -- great feelings around if you don't...).

It matters for raiders, even "casual" raiders who are not world top, if as a WHM they are asked to change jobs constantly because they are hampering the group as a whole, esp. once they are out of the progression stage. (No, I am not a Savage raider for a variety of reasons, but I have enough raider friends where this topic comes up, sometimes painfully. And there have been even NASTY remarks by now about WHM and people who have the audacity to still bring it to the table...)

It matters if as a WHM you are the constant butt of jokes, people "good-heartedly" joking about your chosen job in Eureka, PF, shout chat, you name it, because the flaws in the kit are so glaring.

It matters if you care at least a bit about how easy and fast you clear even a simple dungeon or NM primal with your friends, and melt things as you go as AST or SCH (esp. in otherwise a good party composition), or... more slowly go through it (and heck, WHM is at its best in dungeons, which is by and in itself a sad thing to say...).

It matters if your job is -- justifiably -- seen as the job played by the inexperienced, the unskilled, or as the healer chosen by those inexperienced and unskilled parties and groups to pick up their slack (even though a skilled AST and SCH mostly can do that, too, unless things really get out of hand).

It matters if your job has a very low skill ceiling, and as a result little room to improve beyond the basics. At least that matters for anyone who ever might want to do more than the bare minimum required.

If you don't care about all these things, if you say "I play what I like even if I am the bottom tier of players and badly-balanced jobs, and what others think / want / need is irrelevant", if it's alike to you whether you are slowing your team down or not... then indeed it does not matter. But it is simply not true that these things matter only to the 1%, if even casual dungeon runs are noticeably different depending on the healer (all other things being mostly equal), and so is all other content, and even highly casual players have begun to think about switching away from WHM for that reason. Plenty of people who are not 1% in this game care about doing well, bringing good things to the group, clearing content fast and smoothly, and improving their overall game play over time. Which WHM... is not suited for as it is.

Of everyone I know who used to main as WHM (and there were plenty), you know how many are left? Me. That's all, because clearly I am either stubborn, or endlessly optimistic that one day things will improve. And the majority of these people were not even raiders, much less 1%, but all switched for the same reason: WHM had become too weak and clunky, compared to the other two healers.

So unless you uncaring about anything but your own opinion and personal play style which maybe JUST happens to be satisfied by WHM in it's current, gutted, weakened state? It matters.

WHM is used for progression, by some, and then benched. A tool used and discarded. Or played by people who don't care enough about group performance and their own improvement. Or by people who play with other people who are so bad at the game that the consistent HPS of WHM matters and everything else in the kit of the other healers can't be sufficiently utilized. Or by people who are so casual that they really don't care about anything but an occasional stroll through some lower-end content, whatever the clear time or smoothness.

Or -- I belong to that faction -- by people who have mained WHM since they started playing this game, and increasingly against all reason hoped that the devs would FINALLY listen to the overwhelming feedback from the healer community, and fix the glaring flaws in current healer balance. Sadly that wasn't the case until recently, but there is mild hope now at least, after the devs admitted a little while ago that they DO struggle with healer balance. Why do you think that is? Because the devs, too, think that healer balance does not matter, as you claim? I don't think so.

The argument "all can do all content" is sadly not working in team environments except for the most uncaring about anything beyond their own "play satisfaction", and whatever that means for the individual. "Can do all content" is no benchmark for job balance, it is a sorry excuse not to do better. An individual's enjoyment of a particular job is no benchmark for job balance, it is just subjective experience irrelevant for the greater game system, and thus, health.

I do not agree with the OP, I do have some shreds of hope left. The devs admitted they struggle with healer balance, and said they are working hard to address it -- thus no 4th healer in 5.0. What I saw and heard in the live letter didn't look that good to me, but I reserve final judgment until at least Wednesday when we get to learn more, and then next month as we get to play 5.0 WHM hands on. If they made reasonable improvements to healer balance I stay WHM, otherwise, oh well, AST here I come as my new main. I have suffered and waited long enough as the butt of jokes for holding that beloved cane of mine.

But to say that job balance does not matter? That is really the one argument not working in defense of the current (and ongoing) sorry state of WHM unless you have an attitude where you could as well play a dodo (have fun if you enjoy that, but it seems the overwhelming majority would prefer not to play like that...).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yuyuka3

Play the real content (though now it's already too late with the Echo in every tier of Omega and all that), then come back and try talking again.

---

"Ohnoooo the sky is falling!"

Let's look at some statistics about o12s.

At 75th percentile there is about 150 dps difference between WHM and AST plus cards. Let's say cards give about 500 dps. I've seen a lot better than that and a lot worse. That puts AST about 650 dps ahead of WHM... but there are only 600 more clears on AST than on WHM, 10k AST vs. 9.4k on WHM.

Even with this considerable dps lead that AST has it seems like people are still taking WHM with them at very nearly the same rate. At the very least this proves there is no "locking out" of WHM in the way you claim is looming nearby.

The only large source of strife within the healer balance is SCH being 3k+ clears ahead of AST but that's an issue of SCH having too much utility in its kit not WHM falling catastrophically behind.

It's also worth noting that in UwU (the actual hardest content in the game right now) WHM has more clears listed than AST. Almost as if it's stronger thoroughput matters at the very high end.

Also the actual part of your post in this quote is incredibly condescending and I find it to be very inappropriate. Here we have someone newer to the game or at least to healing trying to get involved in higher end content (for which EX primals are a wonderful stepping stone) and you're putting them down with comments like "play real content before talking" when as far as I'm able to tell you didn't even clear this tier before or after Echo.

To Vivian I would like to apologize - it may be cliche but #notallraiders. I'm glad you're enjoying WHM and I hope you continue to into the future. There will be people who try to tell you your opinion is worth less than theirs because of things like clears obtained or numbers but they're just being insecure and trying to put others down to build themselves up. It's really cringy and terrible but it isn't a big part of the actual game community. I wish you all the best of luck.

If you are with a group that tells you to change from the job you like. Then find another group or make your own. It really isn't that difficult of a problem to fix. If I can keep people alive and stay alive myself then guess what? *It doesn't matter if it's White Mage* or one of the others because I have done my job as a healer. If someone says that things can't go as smooth as silk with a good White Mage in hard content then they clearly do not understand the class. Because yes you can most certainly be nice and clean with White Mage.

I do not care about these things because it is the players skill that determines if White Mage is a good job or not. And you know what? I do not slow people down when I play White Mage and know the fight inside and out. I can not tell you the number of times I had to pick up the slack for an AST or SCH because they were not good enough. So I will repeat myself. White mage is perfectly fine as it is.

And yes, I may be early on but you know what? I am going to work my way through the entire game if I can with my own static with my favorite job because I am confident that I am able to do so.

Yuyu. It sounds more like you're upset about how other people act more than the actual job itself. If people are harassing you for the job that you play then the report button is there for a reason. Use it and ignore them because if they are going to be like that then they don't deserve to get what they want and then prove them wrong by getting everyone through the content.

Edit: Thank you, Veis. I'm not upset with her post since it genuinely seems that she is more angry at the community. Which if that is indeed the reason I can understand how she feels and am sorry to see it. I however am someone that likes to prove those kind of people that say a class sucks wrong. And thus another reason I refuse to change jobs.

It has to be understood that only now is the gap much closer. They had to buff WHM in 4.5 (something that has never been done before previously). with the changes in enmity and the buffs to Assize and PI. Before then, they were even getting kicked over in the Japanese servers. And the clear rates in Alpha were pretty low. Of course we have bout 30 or so days before Shb comes out and the media embargo will be lifted on Wednesday so we'll see what happens. (Also having seen some of the datamining, it's lloking alright for whm.)

It seems that they're not just going about the "pure healer" aspect. But just pure everything based on job action trailer. I saw shields galore, I saw fast cast times, I saw no cast times, I saw damage dealing spells, new lilies apparently make skills have no cast time at all, and I saw a very powerful instant cast offensive spell when you use instant cast heals from lilies.

The issue wasn't JUST utility. Yes, having shields on demand was insanely powerful and made white mage pale in comparison- that's been adjusted on top of White Mage having shields on demand now, so that's just not even an issue now.
The real issue was that they did more DPS in any practical setting. Astro could place cards on the party which did a ton of DPS, all while squeezing in personal DPS when they could and keeping everyone alive. The cards let them DPS while making sure no one died. Same thing with Scholar, they had not only OP shields to prevent damage, but also a fairy that did like 60% of the legwork of healing for them so they can spam broil and miasmaII safely.
White mage, simply, didn't have as many opportunities to do that. They had some, namely tetra being instant cast, Benison, assize, etc. All of their capability to do damage was behind instant cast fat heals, but those run out. Now, if they do it right and shields aren't as broken and White Mage gets a much larger focus on instant cast heals and fat bombs of damage, then yeah they totally can compete. Hell that sounds like the job would immediately have more mechanical depth than the other two. And this isnt' really speculation as what we have seen is pointing entirely towards this. The only thing we're waiting to see are the potencies themselves, which at the moment seems to be what will decide if WHM is still trash or not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

It's also worth noting that in UwU (the actual hardest content in the game right now) WHM has more clears listed than AST. Almost as if it's stronger thoroughput matters at the very high end.

---

This is very misleading nowadays. Both Ultimates released before the changes to Malefic III and Collective Unconscious occurred, which caused a sizable upswing in ASTs because they're simply better at both fights than WHM in almost every aspect. People aren't taking WHM for its thoroughput. They take it due to its better MP management since you're expected to die a lot during prog. As for Savage, you have to factor the current clear logs only date back two weeks. When Alphascape was fresh, AST/SCH was decidedly the better healer comp even for prog, and was noticeably favored.

Regardless, the issue people have taken with Vivian is the insistence WHM is perfectly fine and rDPS essentially doesn't matter. To her it may not, but others do care. And it's factually inaccurate to claim WHM isn't the weakest healer in the same sense SAM is the weakest Melee and MCH is inferior to BRD. Presently, WHM is 100% inferior in almost every aspect, which bother many WHM mains who would rather not be repeatedly ask to play something else. It's easy to say no, but if you're looking to broach into the midcore scene or above, you will have a far more difficult time finding a group willing to sacrifice AST so you can play WHM. Of course, this may change come Shadowbringers, however that is the present day meta.

Simply put, no, WHM is not perfectly fine. If nothing changed going into Shadowbringers, you would see a continual deny because they simply cannot match the utility of SCH/AST. They may clear content but a melee comp of MNK/SAM can clear Ultimate. It doesn't mean the BRD isn't complaining every step of the way (or you can't find one, period) because they've been denied Piercing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Regardless, the issue people have taken with Vivian is the insistence WHM is perfectly fine and rDPS essentially doesn't matter. To her it may not, but others do care. And it's factually inaccurate to claim WHM isn't the weakest healer in the same sense SAM is the weakest Melee and MCH is inferior to BRD. Presently, WHM is 100% inferior in almost every aspect, which bother many WHM mains who would rather not be repeatedly ask to play something else. It's easy to say no, but if you're looking to broach into the midcore scene or above, you will have a far more difficult time finding a group willing to sacrifice AST so you can play WHM. Of course, this may change come Shadowbringers, however that is the present day meta.

Simply put, no, WHM is not perfectly fine. If nothing changed going into Shadowbringers, you would see a continual deny because they simply cannot match the utility of SCH/AST. They may clear content but a melee comp of MNK/SAM can clear Ultimate. It doesn't mean the BRD isn't complaining every step of the way (or you can't find one, period) because they've been denied Piercing.

---

I will say again. If you are having trouble finding a premade group that won't complain about your job. Then make your own out of any friends you have. My group is looking to be a mash of my FC (4 people including myself) another FC (3 people) who I'm trading crystals for runs and just a random friend of mine. Not a single complaint about White Mage either.

You really don't NEED to join a premade that has those kinds of people when other better options are available to you such as forming your own. Thus eliminating the toxic communities response to White Mage.

And I feel the need to point out again that while I like how White Mage currently is. I am not opposed to making it better. In fact the only downside is it being better makes stuff easier and as someone that wants to do things as hard as possible. That is the single negative with White Mage getting buffed. But I am really looking forward to what they are bringing to White Mage in Shadowbringers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

This is very misleading nowadays. Both Ultimates released before the changes to Malefic III and Collective Unconscious occurred, which caused a sizable upswing in ASTs because they're simply better at both fights than WHM in almost every aspect. People aren't taking WHM for its thoroughput. They take it due to its better MP management since you're expected to die a lot during prog. As for Savage, you have to factor the current clear logs only date back two weeks. When Alphascape was fresh, AST/SCH was decidedly the better healer comp even for prog, and was noticeably favored.

Regardless, the issue people have taken with Vivian is the insistence WHM is perfectly fine and rDPS essentially doesn't matter. To her it may not, but others do care. And it's factually inaccurate to claim WHM isn't the weakest healer in the same sense SAM is the weakest Melee and MCH is inferior to BRD. Presently, WHM is 100% inferior in almost every aspect, which bother many WHM mains who would rather not be repeatedly ask to play something else. It's easy to say no, but if you're looking to broach into the midcore scene or above, you will have a far more difficult time finding a group willing to sacrifice AST so you can play WHM. Of course, this may change come Shadowbringers, however that is the present day meta.

Simply put, no, WHM is not perfectly fine. If nothing changed going into Shadowbringers, you would see a continual deny because they simply cannot match the utility of SCH/AST. They may clear content but a melee comp of MNK/SAM can clear Ultimate. It doesn't mean the BRD isn't complaining every step of the way (or you can't find one, period) because they've been denied Piercing.

---

Not going to waste a ton of time so just a few bullet points.

1) Superior MP economy is a big part of thoroughput. It's because of this that WHM can heal so effectively since it's larger heals are tied to the GCD and it's mp pool. It makes it the least efficient healer but also offers more potential HPS when that efficency sacrifice is made.

2) I understand that no one wants to admit it (or nearly no one) but for some groups that efficiency loss by taking a WHM is justifiable and the optimal choice if they aren't cootdinated enough to make the most of AST. Once you start forcing GCD healing you get into a territory where WHM's superior mp economy and the raw potency of Cure III matter. At the very high end these are weighted less... but most of the game and even most of the raid community aren't at the very high end, they're just making comps that they see the best of the best use without wondering if it's the best decision for them.

3) WHM has lagged behind in clear rates for the entire tier, this is due to a multitude of things not the least of which being the fact that Final Omega is basically designed to exacerbate it's weaknesses and downplay it's strength. The gap between WHM and AST has never even approached the gap between AST and SCH though, highlighting the true issue with healer balance being that SCH is too good. Even now WHM and AST are separated by a little more than 500 clears and SCH is 3k ahead of AST. If you want to point fingers at the problem healer there it is.

4) You responded to me in this post and you finish up with "no, WHM isn't perfectly fine"... please, go ahead and quote where I said it was? I've advocated for an rDPS buff for WHM for a very long time now, I'm aware that it isn't perfect; I'm here because I'm bothered by the delusion that WHM is somehow so dramatically inferior in every way. It isn't. That's stupid. I started responding here because someone tried to claim that WHM didn't have the strongest raw healing of the three, another nonsensical rambling.

WHM has strengths and weaknesses just like each healer does. Yes, it's weaknesses stand out in higher end raiding but right now it's in a place where it can comfortably and adequately compete with the other two healers and with the incoming nerfs to overall job synergy in ShB I'm imagining that when personal dps matters more and SCH can't lay all heavy lifting on their partners there will be a much narrower gap.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

I can tell you don't play all 3 healers in any kind of setting where balance matters.

He's clearly referring the pure HPS that a WHM can achieve. Sure, in an optimal setting SCH and AST have enough oGCDs to heal through the majority of damage that will come out in any content... but not all content is an optimal setting. Progging with SCH and WHM is easier in most situations because of the potential for huge burst healing on demand which is something the other healers just don't have. Yes, in talking about Cure III. I'm talking about Assize every 45 seconds. Plenary Indulgence. Asylum. Benediction. I'm talking about the best MP management in the game. Try keeping the party up through big damage on SCH when your cohealer goes down and you don't have Indom.

---

Pure HPS doesn’t matter if the content doesn’t call for it. If a fight only needs 1,000,000 worth of damage healed, why are you going to bring a healer that can heal 10,000,000 worth of damage and call that “utility”? Even with your premise of progression, groups don’t prog forever. The outgoing damage in this game simply isn’t high enough for raw healing to be better than oGCD healing.

Cure III really isn’t as great as you are trying to sell it. It requires players to be stacked together in a far smaller radius than its closest equivalents (Earthly Star and Indom), in addition to its heavy MP cost (where as those cost 0 MP). Assize is also not a healing cooldown in its current iteration. It is a damage button/MP management button, and not much else. Sitting on it waiting for healing results in lost casts per fight, which is inherently inefficient.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chiami

It does matter if you enter PF for an Ex Primal and after people see you also got AST up to 70 ask you to change jobs, and get salty if you don't (Yes, that would be against ToS by now if they "Force" you to do so, but even if they ask nicely -- great feelings around if you don't...).

---

I've healed every EX Primal this expansion - a lot of them on WHM. Never had anyone "get salty" and demand that I switch to AST/SCH. Even after I've done a few runs on AST. This is hardly a pervasive issue.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

1) Superior MP economy is a big part of thoroughput. It's because of this that WHM can heal so effectively since it's larger heals are tied to the GCD and it's mp pool. It makes it the least efficient healer but also offers more potential HPS when that efficency sacrifice is made.

---

Not when the content doesn't require it. The whole reason WHM falls out of favor so regularly isn't just cards but the simple fact this game does not necessitate raw healing thoroughput. Furthermore, just because WHM has better MP management does not mean it has a decisive edge. AST and SCH can manage easily by putting their resources towards healing instead of damage. The difference is they sacrifice what they're already better at and achieve the same thing. An AST playing more defensively with Boles and using Ewers on themselves is still better because WHM has literally nothing to offer when it comes to raid utility.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

2) I understand that no one wants to admit it (or nearly no one) but for some groups that efficiency loss by taking a WHM is justifiable and the optimal choice if they aren't cootdinated enough to make the most of AST. Once you start forcing GCD healing you get into a territory where WHM's superior mp economy and the raw potency of Cure III matter. At the very high end these are weighted less... but most of the game and even most of the raid community aren't at the very high end, they're just making comps that they see the best of the best use without wondering if it's the best decision for them.

---

When we're discussing the overall merits of each individual healer, you do so assuming their strengths not their weaknesses. In a less coordinated group a SAM may be superior to DRG if the former is played by someone who knows how to get the most out of their job. That doesn't make SAM better than DRG—not by a mile. Furthermore, you are severely overrated the benefits of Cure III. Alphascape highlighted the weakness of it hence why AST was the preferred healer even for prog.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

3) WHM has lagged behind in clear rates for the entire tier, this is due to a multitude of things not the least of which being the fact that Final Omega is basically designed to exacerbate it's weaknesses and downplay it's strength. The gap between WHM and AST has never even approached the gap between AST and SCH though, highlighting the true issue with healer balance being that SCH is too good. Even now WHM and AST are separated by a little more than 500 clears and SCH is 3k ahead of AST. If you want to point fingers at the problem healer there it is.

---

Is it simply SCH is too good or is there more to it then that? A significant factor for that discrepancy is due to how poorly WHM and AST synergize with one another. Assize and Earthly Star will frequently cause the other to overheal since you rarely need both, and you never want to sit on either. AST is also put at a disadvantage when played as a shield healer. What about WHM/SCH? The issue here is WHM simply doesn't provide enough to out stage AST. It's played because it can raise more easily and the job is a FF stable. But when looking at the overall efficiency of each healer, which is what you do when debating balance, WHM lags behind significantly. Put another way, if you have someone with 80% on AST and 95% on WHM, they would still be better off playing AST because the utility is that much better. And no, I don't simply mean cards. Collective, ED and Earthly are all insanely powerful—better than every one of WHM's counterparts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

4) You responded to me in this post and you finish up with "no, WHM isn't perfectly fine"... please, go ahead and quote where I said it was? I've advocated for an rDPS buff for WHM for a very long time now, I'm aware that it isn't perfect; I'm here because I'm bothered by the delusion that WHM is somehow so dramatically inferior in every way. It isn't. That's stupid. I started responding here because someone tried to claim that WHM didn't have the strongest raw healing of the three, another nonsensical rambling.

---

How about instead, I point to where I specifically mentioned someone else, making it fairly obvious I was referring to them? If you bothered to read. Of course. I quoted you because of my initial argument.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

I can tell you don't play all 3 healers in any kind of setting where balance matters.

---

Just EX and Savage.

You severely overrate WHM's is healing thoroughput. It has an edge in that regard, but only in sub-optimal situations. Cure III is not nearly as good as you're giving it credit for. Assize is good, yes... except Earthly Star is better. It has nearly double the heal potency. Not to mention, holding Assize for specific mechanics will inevitably lose you casts. This not only harms your DPS but your MP. In most cases, it winds up being an overheal because the short CD works against it. Plenary is decent but requires heavy AoE damage in fairly quick succession. Asylum is garbage when held up against Collective. And while Benediction is also good, it has a very lengthily CD. Essential can nearly heal to full, and is on a 45 second CD.

That all being said, the crux of my argument wasn't to say WHM isn't good at healing nor to dismiss Cure III entirely—even if I don't hold it in the same regard you seem to. It was to dispel the belief AST and SCH needed to be brought up to WHM's healing level. They don't. Both are already capable of handling everything without skipping a beat. They may require a bit more work from the player to maximize their potential but neither of their healing has ever been an issue. It's entirely the lack of utility and oGCD weaving that holds WHM back.

Am I the only one that thinks ast's cards haven't really been a big deal this expansion? I mean, from my own experience, the difference in raid dps has been a little over 1% compared to when I played whm.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mutemutt

Am I the only one that thinks ast's cards haven't really been a big deal this expansion? I mean, from my own experience, the difference in raid dps has been a little over 1% compared to when I played whm.

---

It all depends on how the cards are optimized, as well as the overall performance of the group. Balance can bring 500 to 1,000 rDPS depending on the rate, kill time, and optimization of the members involved. AST’s personal DPS is also fairly comparable to WHM, and that 500~1,000 rDPS is better than 0.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Pure HPS doesn’t matter if the content doesn’t call for it. If a fight only needs 1,000,000 worth of damage healed, why are you going to bring a healer that can heal 10,000,000 worth of damage and call that “utility”? Even with your premise of progression, groups don’t prog forever. The outgoing damage in this game simply isn’t high enough for raw healing to be better than oGCD healing.

---

I really wish people would stop with this mentality since so few groups can actually live up to it.

I've said multiple times that there is no denying the lack of utility on WHM, the point is that groups have to choose between the recovery and healing potential on WHM and the dps bump they'll get from running an AST. For most groups this isn't as cut and dry as people try to make it out to be since most groups just aren't that good. That's the crux of the issue that I'm bringing up.

Balancing around the idea that the entire game is only well-coordinated statics playing the hardest content in the game at the highest skill level is incredibly stupid. SCH and AST are amazing in that setting, sure, but most of the game and even most of Savage isn't played that way.

The strengths of WHM lie elsewhere, specifically when it comes to being able to singlehandedly avert wipes and power through rough patches. It's like saying RDM and Verraise are worthless just because they aren't useful in farming or speedkills; that's all well and good but most groups aren't on the level of farming or speedkills and so RDM retains value.

If you have a group that doesn't need that extra safety net that's great and I'm happy for that. I've pugged a fair bit of this tier specifically and literally swapped off of AST because of this disparity I'm bringing up, only swapping back to it on o12 because Lightspeed is too good for Final to pass up. That's the point here - there is more to raiding than the setting where AST/SCH get to shine.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

noise.

---

I don't understand how you can look at clear rates and still act like WHM being disenfranchised is still the largest issue facing healer balance.

There is literally an imbalance favoring SCH to a massive degree with WHM and AST being much closer for the entire expansion and somehow you still make this about WHM?

Move on. Extra healing is a valid resource for lots of groups, especially pugs. As I said to Hyomin if you have a group that doesn't make mistakes great for you! If not then WHM still very much has value. Denying it is just inflating your own self image, trying to act like the actual top tier if raiders when you don't have the skill to back it up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

It all depends on how the cards are optimized, as well as the overall performance of the group. Balance can bring 500 to 1,000 rDPS depending on the rate, kill time, and optimization of the members involved. AST’s personal DPS is also fairly comparable to WHM, and that 500~1,000 rDPS is better than 0.

---

There will always be a best as far as dps goes. Trying to get the difference between the healers to 0 is a pipe dream. It's really about bringing them reasonably close and what you believe that to be and, honestly, I think they've been there for a while now. Scouring fflogs, I'm amazed at how little impact it really seems to make compared to how much people talk about it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

I don't understand how you can look at clear rates and still act like WHM being disenfranchised is still the largest issue facing healer balance.

There is literally an imbalance favoring SCH to a massive degree with WHM and AST being much closer for the entire expansion and somehow you still make this about WHM?

Move on. Extra healing is a valid resource for lots of groups, especially pugs. As I said to Hyomin if you have a group that doesn't make mistakes great for you! If not then WHM still very much has value. Denying it is just inflating your own self image, trying to act like the actual top tier if raiders when you don't have the skill to back it up.

---

Perhaps because you're inserting an argument I never made. Nowhere did I say WHM isn't viable or somehow incapable of clearing content. Quite the contrary, in fact. I simply said it's the weakest of the three healers. A group doesn't need to be perfect for that fact to remain hence why I specifically mentioned a weaker AST still being better than WHM provided both are within a certain range of each other.

But yes, conflate my argument into the nonsense you have to be a top tier raider to recognize when one job (this isn't unique to healers) falls behind statistically. WHM's popularity keeps its numbers high—that and it being very easy to play. Since you want to trade snarky comments. What have you done on healers?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mutemutt

There will always be a best as far as dps goes. Trying to get the difference between the healers to 0 is a pipe dream. It's really about bringing them reasonably close and what you believe that to be and, honestly, I think they've been there for a while now. Scouring fflogs, I'm amazed at how little impact it really seems to make compared to how much people talk about it.

---

I’m aware that there will always be a best/always be a META. That is inevitable. However, you’re not considering cards stacked with other raid buffs. Alone, sure—perhaps they seem like they don’t do much. With a group that cannot optimize them—sure, perhaps they don’t do much. But coordination with burst phases and key raid buffs like Litany, BV, and Chain go a long way when it comes to cards. The meta is all about stacking buffs, not just one single buff.

What I do not get in this thread is the amount of people stating that raid dps doesn't matter, when the first few weeks of a raid are entirely based on the premise of how much numbers you can put on the boss, especially the final floor's "door" fight.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

I really wish people would stop with this mentality since so few groups can actually live up to it.

---

I don't agree. You would be surprised how many midcore groups I've run into that do not want WHM at all because they want more numbers on a 3rd party website. While most groups "aren't that good", they like to pretend they are, they're the ones perpetuating the meta.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

Balancing around the idea that the entire game is only well-coordinated statics playing the hardest content in the game at the highest skill level is incredibly stupid. SCH and AST are amazing in that setting, sure, but most of the game and even most of Savage isn't played that way.

---

It's as stupid as White Mage not having any marginal personal DPS over Astrologian for most of the expansion. Then in 4.4 Astrologian outpaced White Mage by a mile due to multiple buffs. If you played White Mage in 4.4, you were handicapping yourself and your raid.

Even Samurai has had a marginal increase over other DPS jobs for a good part of the expansion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

The strengths of WHM lie elsewhere, specifically when it comes to being able to singlehandedly avert wipes and power through rough patches. It's like saying RDM and Verraise are worthless just because they aren't useful in farming or speedkills; that's all well and good but most groups aren't on the level of farming or speedkills and so RDM retains value.

If you have a group that doesn't need that extra safety net that's great and I'm happy for that. I've pugged a fair bit of this tier specifically and literally swapped off of AST because of this disparity I'm bringing up, only swapping back to it on o12 because Lightspeed is too good for Final to pass up. That's the point here - there is more to raiding than the setting where AST/SCH get to shine.

---

That's an interesting idea for strengths considering how many of the raid encounters will straight up wipe your party if you fail a mechanic. I'm surprised that you bring up pugging. Far more often than not, we wouldn't fail in pugs because we had or didn't have White Mage. It was often due to key players being incapable of doing mechanics, or doing DPS so low that what we did would not matter.

After 2 expansions of White Mage being in a weird place, it's strange to imply that WHM players are not disenfranchised. I have friends who stopped playing this game, because they would get nagged by their statics constantly to "play Ninja over Samurai", "play Summoner over Red Mage/Black Mage", and "play Astrologian over White Mage". Sure, you can window shop for another static, but that's time consuming and there are other games you can play. Running your own static is akin to running a kindergarten, it's a big responsibility and you sometimes run into all kinds of strange individuals. I can give plenty examples of weird stuff that's happened in my past groups.

And as much as I'm not a large fan of Hyomin, it's uncharitable to downplay their play. As far as I know, they're a very competent BRD player.

I hope OP is never in control of class balance lmao.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

I really wish people would stop with this mentality since so few groups can actually live up to it.

---

It’s not really a mentality—it’s a fact. If a piece of content doesn’t call for the amount of healing that WHM brings, it stops being a utility. Just like RDM’s Verraise (which I know you mentioned below—SMN actually has an easier time tossing out raises because RDM runs into MP issues if it Verraises too much, where as SMN has an extra tool to help with MP recovery).

Very little content requires the amount of raw healing that the developers boost as being WHM’s strong suit. Even Ultimate. When you start healing more than the content requires, you’re overhealing. Which is a waste of resources—MP, regen ticks, GCD; all of those.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

I've said multiple times that there is no denying the lack of utility on WHM, the point is that groups have to choose between the recovery and healing potential on WHM and the dps bump they'll get from running an AST. For most groups this isn't as cut and dry as people try to make it out to be since most groups just aren't that good. That's the crux of the issue that I'm bringing up.

---

Both AST and SCH can also recover when things run south—this is not something that only WHM can do. Perhaps they may have to utilize less efficient tools compared to their oGCD tools (or burn some oGCDs on things like Lustrate over Energy Drain), but that doesn’t mean they can’t do it. When it comes to progression, you’re generally playing it fairly safe anyways regardless of what kind of group you’re in—so you will be casting a lot of GCD healing you otherwise wouldn’t be.

You’re making it almost sound like it’s impossible for an AST or a SCH to recover if crap starts to hit the fan, and I think that’s the issue I’m having when it comes to finding any sort of common ground with you. I just disagree with that statement.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

Balancing around the idea that the entire game is only well-coordinated statics playing the hardest content in the game at the highest skill level is incredibly stupid. SCH and AST are amazing in that setting, sure, but most of the game and even most of Savage isn't played that way.

---

So, what should we balance against then? The lowest common denominator? That’s just as stupid. This game should not be balanced around what people can do in dungeons.

Balance should be done in the highest settings so that the true potential of each job is seen—and so they don’t end up overpowered because of things that were never considered when it came to testing. For example, keep in mind that BRD and MCH have constantly been balanced without any sort of synergy in mind—i.e., no raid buffs, including no piercing. What has happened every time? They end up far stronger than the developers thought they would be because of DRG—and, up until recently, have kicked casters out of the meta (MCH is actually still parse run meta, despite its clunkiness, because Hypercharge is inherently better than anything casters bring—but BLM/SMN have made it into speedkills because the devs finally allowed a selfish job [BLM] to be a selfish job).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

The strengths of WHM lie elsewhere, specifically when it comes to being able to singlehandedly avert wipes and power through rough patches. It's like saying RDM and Verraise are worthless just because they aren't useful in farming or speedkills; that's all well and good but most groups aren't on the level of farming or speedkills and so RDM retains value.

---

Groups don’t spend forever progging/wiping to fights, though. No matter how “midcore” or “softcore” they may be. Once this “recovery” phase passes, WHM’s raw healing becomes nothing. Especially since AST can heal just as well as a WHM and provide damage buffs. Even if a group doesn’t know how to optimize the cards to the extent a speedkill group does, an AOE Balance in the opener is still more than what WHM can bring. Especially since AST pDPS is comparable to WHM’s.

You can’t base a premise solely on “progression” or “people suck at stuff”. Because that’s not always the case—it doesn’t always stay the case. Once you reliably start to clear a fight, that is considered farming. Which a lot of even midcore groups easily accomplish when it comes to the first two floors of Savage, and eventually to the others. Perhaps it’s just your wording, or perhaps it’s because I am tired, but you’re making it sound like groups that aren’t speedkill groups are permanently on the prog step of Savage.

My Deltascape and Sigmascape groups were fairly casual. Even they weren’t stuck on progression forever.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

If you have a group that doesn't need that extra safety net that's great and I'm happy for that. I've pugged a fair bit of this tier specifically and literally swapped off of AST because of this disparity I'm bringing up, only swapping back to it on o12 because Lightspeed is too good for Final to pass up. That's the point here - there is more to raiding than the setting where AST/SCH get to shine.

---

My group during Alphascape was actually quite questionable for many reasons that I won’t go too deep into here. But we still did most of the fights with AST/SCH despite how much of a mess they could be. When our AST did go WHM, they were still a mess. Boosted recovery ability aside (especially o11s for some reason). I’ve also done both UCoB (up to Blackfire) with an AST or on AST, and I’ve never done UwU with a WHM yet (I’ve cleared it on BRD—if I had time I’d reprog on AST but focusing on reclears atm). AST doesn’t seem to have any problems in those fights either, and I don’t play with bleeding edge players. I play with good players, but not any that are this standard of “speedkill” that you keep talking about. I don’t even hold myself to that standard when I make my claims.

I just don’t think you can’t hinge a job’s relevance or ability on the premise of “permanent progression” or “people suck” — especially when the other two can handle the same situations even with making damage sacrifices (which, WHM may have decent MP, but when a group is as bad as needing you to blatantly overheal, Thin Air and Lucid can only do so much—even WHM runs dry eventually).

Looking at the leaks for SCH, I see their only aoe is a 150 potency skill that's spammable. They deleted Shadow Flare and Bane, so this is essentially the only skill SCH will have. Unless of course we find out tomorrow that SCH has some other way of throwing some AoE on there. I wouldn't bank on it though. Are they really going to gimp SCH aoe wise again like they did at the start of Stormblood?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Starflake

Looking at the leaks for SCH, I see their only aoe is a 150 potency skill that's spammable. They deleted Shadow Flare and Bane, so this is essentially the only skill SCH will have. Unless of course we find out tomorrow that SCH has some other way of throwing some AoE on there. I wouldn't bank on it though. Are they really going to gimp SCH aoe wise again like they did at the start of Stormblood?

---

I think its intentional. Leaks also say healers get reduced to one AoE, one dot and one single target direct spell. Aero III is gone, assize does no damage. Only difference is SCH still has ruin ii, and WHM gets that blood lily thing.

Yeah, seems like really sad times ahead for all healers worth their salt.

Unless healing requirements increase dramatically, healing is going to become beyond boring and I might just drop it altogether.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jollyy5

Yeah, seems like really sad times ahead for all healers worth their salt.

Unless healing requirements increase dramatically, healing is going to become beyond boring and I might just drop it altogether.

---

I’d hold your beer on that one buddy. It’s like this every damn expansion where the worries are there; but with a rework of this scale we need to consider how they’re changing their algorithm because they’re changing how MP is managed, how MP Ticks with Piety affect your 3s income, and how Healers interact with the Charge System(if they have any charges at all).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jollyy5

Yeah, seems like really sad times ahead for all healers worth their salt.

Unless healing requirements increase dramatically, healing is going to become beyond boring and I might just drop it altogether.

---

My god this forum is filled with so many of you people who go on and on about how healers are going to become boring when you have seen so little and have experienced none of the content. I got an idea. How about you actually wait to play it before saying it's going to be boring? Is that a thing that you are capable of? Or do people like you just want to complain nonstop about something they know little about?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vivian_Vex

My god this forum is filled with so many of you people who go on and on about how healers are going to become boring when you have seen so little and have experienced none of the content. I got an idea. How about you actually wait to play it before saying it's going to be boring? Is that a thing that you are capable of? Or do people like you just want to complain nonstop about something they know little about?

---

If the leaks are true, SCH specifically has a single dot and a single damage spell. No bane, No Energy Drain.

How are they supposed to quest like that? How is that fun? I don't want to feel like I'm level 6 again. Because that's exactly what this will feel like.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deceptus

If the leaks are true, SCH specifically has a single dot and a single damage spell. No bane, No Energy Drain.

How are they supposed to quest like that? How is that fun? I don't want to feel like I'm level 6 again. Because that's exactly what this will feel like.

---

*If the leaks are true*

This is exactly what I was talking about. Everyone just needs to calm down and wait until we actually see what happens in game. because I'm sure everyone is still going to be able to quest and do all that stuff.